“I want to recall the $36 million being wasted on a bloody yacht race in San Francisco and spend it instead on heating in the poorer suburbs of Christchurch,” Harawira said.

I agree on not funding the America’s Cup bid but sadly the last Labour Government signed a contract forcusing us to do so. However we do have a choice over whether to have an un-necessary by-election, and the $500,000 wasted could also be used heating homes in Christchurch or even in Northland.

Parliament can only resolve not to have a by-election if the resignation occurs within six months of Parliament automatiically dissolving (22 May) or the announced election date (26 May).

If Helen Clark was still in power, I seuspect she’d be tempted to retrospectively amend the Electoral Act so that the six month period is extended to seven months. Then Hone would be out of Parliament and unable to use taxpayer funding to set up his new party.

The $500,000 costs may be on the light side. As this is a Maori seat, they will need many more polling places than in a general seat by-election.

What really peeves me about this also, is that the new Mana Party is obviously totally backed by the UNITE union – the very same union that doesn’t even pay its taxes – in fact has collected PAYE tax off its staff and failed to pay it to the Government as legally obliged. So they are campaigning on how people should pay more tax, and they don’t even pay tax themselves.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia – currently in Russia for a conference – said she did not know if the party was standing a candidate in the byelection.

But she did much the same as Harawira before the 2005 election: quitting Labour and resigning her Te Tai Hauauru electorate to renew her mandate in a byelection.

Not quite the same at all. Turia resigned in May 2004 – well over a year before the September 2005 election.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 1st, 2011 at 8:47 am and is filed under NZ Politics.
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Ha. I am no fan of Hone’s brand of extremism but this is just hilarious. The money is indeed a waste of money but what’s your position on the $1,500,000 that’s been wasted on empty campervans in Christchurch? Surely if you are going to talk wastage of public money both are equally bad. Actually no the campervans are worse because any blind fool could see they were never going to fly. At least the by-election will answer whether mana is going to fly or not.

How can the right be squealing over this when National has wasted $1 million subsidising crap camper vans for displaced people in chchs. Guess, what surprise surprise – people don’t want to live in fucking camper vans during the southern winter. They all moved to Dunedin, where there is now there is an accommodation shortage. The Nats are fucking thousands of victims of a tragic event, and you’re whining about the democratic process being carried out? Unforgivable.

What is the legal position if Hone resigns and the Mana party is not registered?

What is the latest date by which a ‘party’ registration must be made before this by-election

Can a by-election take place when one of the participating parties is not registered?

If the Mana party is NOT registered can it still legally participate?

Finally, if the Mana party ISN’T registered by the required date, and its participation is consequently null, void and declined, what is the bet that this fact will be given a ‘racist’ (MoFo-oppression) spin by the usual suspects (as well as Hone)?

Inexplicably, paul east bay is keen to sully his own name by defending the indefensible. Another Kblog clown willing to make himself look like a moron in defence of his oligarchic masters. Could you not direct a message at me again please. You’re beneath my contempt.

Let’s get real and be honest here. We all know that if he wasn’t doing this you’d be pushing the “ohhh he’s got no mandate from the people it’s just Hone wanking off again he was originally elected as a Maori Party mp why’s he using their seat to start a new party” etc etc

Now that he’s looking for that mandate it’s a waste of money, Hone pissing our taxes down the drain, blah blah blah

Paul, yes I agree on the arrogance and spite, but what are you going to do, it’s all legal and Hone’s right so the voters will make of it want they want.
The subject has been made ‘wastage’ in the post above. To single out what is a reasonably paltry sum as wastage when there is clearly far more damaging wastage going on is rather narrow minded.

Let’s have a bit of consistency applied to to the cost of by-elections – shall we?

National Party ex-MP Pansy Wong caused a by-election in Botany after being effectively forced to resign over her arguably ‘corrupt’ practices?

This has triggered another by-election – both of which are costing taxpayers AND rate payers money.

National’s Jami-Lee Ross effectively caused the current Auckland Council Howick by-election when he CHOSE to stand, then won the Botany by-election.

If Dick Quax were to win the Howick Auckland Council by-election, then would not that cause yet ANOTHER by-election at local board level?

All triggered by EX- National Party MP Pansy Wong’s arguably corrupt ‘misuse of public office for private gain’?

(Don’t forget – we’re still waiting for the Office of the Auditor-General to complete their investigation, which should, as I understand it, include the changing of the company address of ‘Shipley & Wong Ltd’ to that of Pansy Wong’s electorate office on 11 June 2010?)

How much will all this cost taxpayers / ratepayers and who is pointing the finger at National – if we’re looking at the costs of by-elections being a waste of public monies?

Hone is seeking a mandate from his electorate for the new Mana Party – which has a position of opposition to neo-liberalism and monopoly capitalism.

(A different position to that of the Maori Party from which Hone resigned.)

To seek a mandate from his electorate for this new Mana Party with this new, ‘more radical’ platform seems fair enough to me.

Of course I can understand why supporters of neo-liberalism and monopoly capitalism are pulling out all the stops to undermine a party of this nature getting off the ground?

(However – I guess it will help take the heat out of the corporate media campaign to undermine support for Labour/ Phil Goff and NZ First /Winston Peters ?)

(Eeeek!

SCARY thought!

What if the Mana Party gets electoral support from a number of those who usually don’t bother voting?

There are quite a number of them – aren’t there? ………………..

So what if the Mana Party didn’t necessarily ‘cannibalise’ votes from the Greens or Labour Party – but mobilised a new, effectively ‘forgotten?’ voting base?

In Matt McCarten’s propaganda column in the NZ Herald today, he states “The Mana party alternative believes good comes from individuals meeting the needs of others.”

This total sense of entitlement drives MANA. Its all about ‘tax tax tax’ those who earn a living and ‘give give give’ to anyone with their hand out. Even the release of the travel expenses this week confirmed the Hatfield ethos of greed – Hone stated that he needed more and more money because it was his right to deliver ‘his message’ across NZ. This spend culminated in a gathering of the malcontents, protesters and placard waving dissidents this week at the ‘launch’ of his latest cause.

This potential for Hatfield to initiate a $500k waste of money should come as no surprise. Hatfield and his ilk exist on this sense of entitlement – courtesy of the taxpayer. He will view this cost as nothing more that a contribution (by the taxpayer) to his fight against white man’s oppression (or whatever else Titiwhai says at the time).

One good side to this will be the fact that the farce that is MMP will come into a very visible focus and the electorate will decide this November whether we dump it.

Perhaps at the same time, National / ACT can deliver the electorate the opportunity to decide whether we should scrap the racist seats for good.

I haven’t heard anyone try to say that what Pansy did was ok. It was Key who made disclosure of the this sort of abuse possible. It was Key who made it clear that her tenure had to end. As I see it, her actions were universally condemned. Hone, however, holds the seat. He reached a deal with MP that he would continue to hold it as an independant. As an independent he can advance the policies of his party. He can seek a mandate in November. Why does the taxpayer need to fork out solely so that he can get some publicity?
Your attribution of the Botany bi-election to National is nonsnese – unless you regard an intolerance of mis-spending as a sound foundation for attribution. Your hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Is Hone being a bit naive? He said the last two elections cost him personally $12/13k, bBut presumably he had some help from the party he was member of. Having a by-election closely followed by a general election is going to test the Mana Party’s organising and fundraising abilities. Supporting the poor and dissing people with money may not tap huge resources for party finds.

This election is going to cost Hone a lot more that $12/13k. As soon as he resigns, he loses his salary: that’s $20k+ gone for a start. He also loses ~$4k in accommodation subsidy, but might still have to pay to rent a Wellington apartment. His mileage allowance and free taxis are also gone, and Hone was spending quite a bit on travel (though much of that would be flights, which he shouldn’t need).

If he wins the by-election it may mean a little – if he retains the seat with some serious competition – or it may be a hollow victory if it’s a non-competition. But it will do nothing to indicate what the party chances are – he knows that to get any more MPs other than himself he needs party vote, and that will still be a big unknown. And a big ask, the Maori Party gets a relatively low party vote, hence Harawira targeting Labour party votes. That may be a reason why he is trying to woo the union/worker vote – although the non-Maori aspect seemed an after thought in this morning’s interview on Q+A.

Interesting also that Harawira said Mana would appeal to intelligent Maori – but Sharples sounded much more thoughtful and intelligent in the following interview.

Yep a conference on healthy living or eating as I recall seeing it reported.
(or holiday at the Black Sea with Putin. Maybe think what you like but hardly a wise use of taxpayers money.
That’s what Brash is on about.
Still he won’t stop it happening as MP’s remain entitled to be educated.

Jesus – either you think that $500,000 being spent on a by-election with a general election on the horizon is a good idea or not.

The fact that the government has wasted money on campervans has a sum total of fuck all to do with the issue. I’m sick to death of “politcal discourse” in this country totally fucking ignoring the actual issue and resorting to a tedious game of “But look at what you guys did” bullshit.

what will the bi-election prove?
1st of all, the seat is a race based seat. If Hatfield wins, he will claim a mandate in a seat that he thinks that the Maori Party won’t contest and the Labour Party don’t want to contest. Unless Labour and the Mparty front up, then the result is meaningless

I suspect he will be found wanting in that area – no intelligent maori, well no intelligent person full stop would ever vote for his bunch of hypocritical, tyranical and racist loons. His quote has just given us so much ammo to ridicule him and the dicktits that are involved in his mana mugabe party.

The answer is simple. No one should dtand against him in the by-election and take away the platform he is looking for. I expect labour and the Maori party will stand aside. The greens may be dumb enough to put someone up. National is unlikely to field a candidate and ACT cannot given their position in respect of the Maori seats. That leaves Hone and possibly the legalise canibis party and the greens (same as the legalise canibis party in so many ways). Lets keep our fingers crossed.

There are number of factors to consider regarding the by-election in Te Tai Tokerau. I am discussing options with whanau, Te Tai Tokerau members of the Labour Party, Labour Maori Caucus, Te Kaunihera Maori and the Party leaders.

A decision will be announced later in the week.

seems you maybe right Mark .. Kelvin Davis doesn’t know what to do. The Greens won’t compete, Hatfield has already said he will work with them

No Pita Sharples is the rumoured candidate for the MP, now that Hone’s broken the agreement.

This is all about Hone returning to Parliament with a Party Leader’s budget which they will use for the war chest. They have obviously estimated this will be worth more to them than the cost of tapping their members twice instead of just the once.

The irony of the Mana workers party tapping their members twice while at the same time declaring they will help them out of their poverty has obviously escaped them. Not surprising. Commies don’t normally take anyone else’s needs into account in their planning. They didn’t in Russia and it’s not going to happen here either, obviously.

On Marae Investigates TV1 this morning Annette Sykes described her Mana Party colleagues as high level intellectuals, passionate about tino ranga tiro tanga. Guest commentator Veronica Tawhai a political scientist of Massey University described Mana Party supporters as wanting a strong independent maori political voice but she described young people as “People that have never voted” as being Mana’s target electorate.
This means that the Electoral Commission will have to spend thousands enrolling young maori voters who won’t vote because they won’t engage.
With that in mind Hone is going to struggle to retain his seat.

I’m an intelligent Maori, proven through hard work and high levels of university education. I’m also intelligent enough to know that the Harawira Party is not going to go anywhere, mainly because it will be filled with idealists, all with different agendas.

“I agree on not funding the America’s Cup bid but sadly the last Labour Government signed a contract forcusing us to do so.”

Source? Or is this like the PM”s initial claim the BMW’s were Labour’s fault because of an imaginary signed contract committing them to it? Heck this Government has been able to go back on several promises, why not this one, or is the America’s Cup the only sporting event the PM hasnt yet had a photo op with?

Some people refer to the name Harawira as being the Maori version of Hatfield, being perhaps Hone’s real name. I suspect the English name was in fact Hadfield, of which there have been far greater numbers around Northland, and perhaps hark back to the missionary called Octavius Hadfield.

You would think, given that Pita is already an electorate MP in another constituency, that the Electoral Act would prohibit this. It doesn’t.

The Electoral Officer has consistently refused to enroll people from standing in two or more electorate seats. To date nobody has taken him to court. The closest is Gail McIntosh (IIRC) who was sitting in Lyttelton was thinking about running for Tauranga in the Peters-induced by-election. She had an opinion from David McGee that such an action was lawful under the electoral act but she didn’t go through with it.

If she had, I imagine the Electoral Officer would have refused to enter her and then rung up McGee in the middle of the night saying “fuck you”. The resulting court case would have been entertaining but it would have cost McInstosh the by-election.

The Electoral Officer has consistently refused to enroll people from standing in two or more electorate seats. To date nobody has taken him to court.

And he’s been doing the right thing: see the Electoral Act 1993, section 59:

59 No person to be candidate for more than 1 district or on more than 1 list

(1) No person shall at any general election be—

(a) a candidate for more than 1 electoral district; or
(b) a candidate whose name is included on more than 1 party list submitted pursuant to section 127.

(2) If 2 or more by-elections are held on the same polling day, no person shall be a candidate at more than 1 of those by-elections.

This doesn’t, however, stop a current constituency MP from running in a by-election. Advice of this nature would have been properly given by David McGee. I am confident the Chief Electoral Office would have accepted the nomination as the law is abundantly clear. I just don’t believe it has come up.

More like sad Pete, for what it signifies amongst that electorate, given they’re the very people who need to get what ACT is about in order to get ahead. They never seem to get ahead listening to the current people they listen to, do they and this has been the situation since forever hasn’t it? Why is that, do you think?

Sorry reid and pete. I don’t see the problem. No, im afraid Act has done far more to damage the intelligence of our youth than pot ever could. i.e. Their universe is a bleak one where two forces, supply and demand determine what group(s) of society, get to set its course. The measure of a person’s worth is in $. It’s a black and white, reductionist world-view that appeals to people who fancy themselves as being happy in such an environment. That’s what really scares me about Act people.

Act’s slash and burn version of capitalism is dumb. Act people think that externalising environmental and social costs from production will mean that we never have to pay for them. Wrong, the wider community picks up after the costs of an “efficient market”. i.e. 20% youth unemployment = crime. duh! When are you willing dupes going to realise? Cash does not capture all the value in a transaction – it only measures commodity value, not the inherent ecological or social value (not easily rendered in to abstract continuum, so they’re discounted by those who subscribe to simplistic and blinkered Aristotelian logic – i.e. market liberals). That’s why we have had to assign a (negative) commodity value to carbon, because it was a cost of doing business that was externalised from the bottom line. Are there a few pennies dropping now?

Don’t tell me, that because i take a few steps back in this game of chess that i don’t have life experience. I just have the ability to look at things from a distance. But you have to take a few steps back to see the big picture – otherwise you’re a rat in a maze rather than an observer.

Their universe is a bleak one where two forces, supply and demand determine what group(s) of society, get to set its course. The measure of a person’s worth is in $. It’s a black and white, reductionist world-view that appeals to people who fancy themselves as being happy in such an environment. That’s what really scares me about Act people.

Well good news mb for you couldn’t be more wrong about what ACT is about.

Nothing about what you say above is true. Isn’t that good news.

ACT simply believes in directing funds where they’re needed and why engage in programs which distribute those elsewhere?

What’s wrong with that?

See if you listen to ACT instead of listening to the propaganda you’ll hear nothing whatsoever about cutting benefit programs that work and are directed to social need, but plenty about those which occur but which go to (to use a word you’ll understand), rich pricks.

Nice wee pitch for Act their Reid – but a bit simplistic. Act are pro-privatisation and a labour market that is highly elastic, so wage differentials increase, along with income inequality. No Reid – i’m afraid that you will not convince me that Act holds a brighter furure for lower socio-economic communities. That fact that you thought you could get away with that bs doesn’t make you look too bright though.

the phoney idea of allocative efficiency that market-heads go on about. A deregulated labour market allow for greater differences in wages according to supply of and demand for skills – providing incentive for skills training, increasing labour productivity. But the main driver of productivity is ratio of capital to labour, so this is a moot point. Plus, such an elastic labour market leads to market segmentation, and therefore lower social mobility, leads to greater social polarisation and social dysfunction. See you just need to take a few steps back.

Privatisation of social services lowers the social wage, which then increases stratification in living standards, which causes more social polarisation, etc …

But the main driver of productivity is ratio of capital to labour, so this is a moot point.

Why is it a moot point for it seems to me a deregulated labour market doesn’t really affect the ratio of capital to labour except in a good way or what am I missing? And also, how precisely do Liarbore’s policies improve said ratio, as opposed to what ACT’s policies would do for it?

Also, what’s wrong with privatisation? It would be good if we could get that cleared up.

P.S. It would be better if you explained without using terms like allocative efficiency, some people might think you were trying to be a bit smarmy.

I despise Hone Harawira about as much as I despise Act. Let’s hope that New Zealanders have the brains to vote out MMP and thus kill these annoying minority parties as soon as we can. Minorities have had disproportionate influence over the majority of New Zealanders for too long.

Yeah but none of the many people I know made redundant including myself over the last few years have ever found themselves out of work.

What any country needs is labour-intensive industries that produce wealth, rather than shuffle existing money around.

Which is precisely why I continually advocate us adopting the Irish model at every opportunity and I was very pleased to hear Brash refer to it on Willie and JT’s show the other day.

But it’s far cheaper to get people in China, say, to make things, and most ex-industrial-based economies are struggling to find alternatives.

NZ more than most cause we don’t have a large domestic market, depends on free trade. Globalisation is a threat and off-shoring has decimated US manufacturing. 40,000 manufacturing plants in the US have been closed and they have exported 40,000 jobs per month since China joined the WTO in 2001.

However we can’t change globalisation, we can’t alter its course in anyway, we simply have to deal with it. That’s the only alternative. This is why Don and I advocate the Irish model.

I said I hoped that we’d get rid of MMP, not that I thought it would happen, reid

Unfortunately a large number of young adults seem to like MMP. Undoubtedly the result of careful indoctrination on the part of communist lecturers in the universities like Jane Kelsey. Hopefully when they get older they’ll see reason.

What happens if only one person stands for election? That should mean the by-election is not necessary?

It should. And does.

See s 148 of the Electoral Act 1993:

148 Procedure where election not contested
(1) If—
(a) only 1 constituency candidate is nominated in a district; or
(b) any constituency candidate who has been nominated duly withdraws his or her nomination and there remains only 1 constituency candidate,—
the Electoral Commission must, in accordance with section 179(2), declare the constituency candidate to be duly elected.

Mr Harawira confirmed at the launch of his new Mana Party that he would resign this week to force a byelection, saying it would give the people of Te Tai Tokerau their say on whether he still had a mandate as the new party leader.

Mr Harawira also said the Maori Party president had confirmed it would not stand against him, in accordance with the agreement reached when he left the party in February.

Yesterday, however, Maori Party president Pem Bird said he considered the agreement was “no longer in force” because those assurances related only to a general election and only if Mr Harawira stood as an independent.

Dr Sharples also said on TVNZ’s Q+A that the decision to call a byelection had broken the truce between the two parties.

He also disputed that Mr Harawira could claim to have a mandate from Maori if the Maori Party did not stand against him.

It would be a farcical mandate if the Maori Party don’t contest. And even better if Labour don’t better either.

So Hone using the rules to obtain advantage (recognition as an elected party plus more money) is his fault and not the rules’?

Don’t get me wrong, the whole Maori representation thing is a farce and on the evidence Maori (whoever they are) have ben poorly served by this but if he wasn’t brown would there be all this breast beating about it?

This complete rorting of our electoral system and public money is so contemptuous. My advice would be for other parties to ignore the by-election and let it be the farce it is, then take Mana on in the real election. The more parties that participate, the more logs to Hone’s fire. Starve him of fuel. I’d also keep my powder dry and resources conserved for November for a king hit.